Hey guys. Welcome back to Dede’s Mediterranean Kitchen. Today, I’m going to be making a dish that I’ve received a lot of emails on, so many emails. And I wanted to make it when I knew the real authentic way to make it. It’s Couscous. Now I got this recipe from one of my North African friends because Couscous is a North African dish, along the south of the Mediterranean. I got this from one of my friends Aida, so I’m going to teach you how to make it today. Now remember, if you want this recipe, go to my website, www.DedeMed.com. And if you have any questions or concerns or comments or anything you’d like to ask me, email me or post a question and I’ll make sure to answer you.
Now there’s a lots of ingredients that you’re going to need to make Couscous but they’re really simple ingredients. We’re going to start off with Couscous. Now Couscous, there’s a couple different kinds of couscous, and it’s made a couple different ways. The kind that’s sold in most of the grocery stores here in the United States is the kind that’s almost an instant Couscous where put it in a pot, you add some water and then you let it fluff up. Traditionally, Couscous is made with a pot with a steamer on top called a Couscousi /kuhsKUWsiy/ or Couscousi /KUHSkuhsiy/. And what happens is you put the Couscous on top and then below you have the liquid, whatever you know sauce or liquid that you’re going to be using for the dish. And the couscous absorbs the steam from it and that way it fluffs up and cooks. But we are not going to be doing that today because it’s not readily available everywhere in the United States, so I want to make this dish as easy as possible for you guys.
So I have one cup of Couscous. I have some butter. I also have some pearl onions. Now you can buy these frozen or you can buy them at the grocery store. Just peel them off. You’re going to need about 15. If you don’t like onions, you don’t have to add onions, but onions go really, really well with the Couscous. I have a 15-ounce of drained garbanzo beans. That’s also very popular in the Couscous dishes. I have some potatoes. I got two red potatoes. I boiled them. I cut them up, and I precooked them for the Couscous sauce. I have about a cup of chopped up carrots. I have a half cup of chopped cilantro, a fourth cup of chopped parsley. I have two cloves of mint garlic. I have one teaspoon of paprika. I have a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a half teaspoon of seven spices and a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg. I have some salt. I also have some tomato sauce, just any kind of tomato sauce at the store. This is probably about three cups of tomato sauce. We’re going to add a little bit of water to that later on. I have a chicken bouillon. If you want to make this a vegetarian dish, you don’t need have to use the chicken bouillon, you can use a veggie bouillon. I’m going to use this when I cook up the Couscous because it adds a little bit more flavor to it. This Couscous, I want to explain to you, can be served with a lot of different kinds of sauces or vegetables. Some people make it with lambs. Some people make it with beef. Some people make it with chicken. You can make it with a broth sauce. You can make it with a red sauce. Traditionally, it’s usually a red sauce, but you can change it up if you want. You can use a white sauce. I mean, you’re going to make this dish to suit for flavors so remember that. I also have some salt, some water, some black pepper, and I also have, well I put the tomato sauce in a cork pot. I’m also going to need another pot with a lid to cook the Couscous, and I’m going to need another one to sauté the vegetables. So we’re going to start…
Now I have my pot on the heat. I have it on medium low heat. I’m going to add one and a quarter cup of water. Oh, my pot is a little bit hot, so one and a quarter cup. We’re going to let that come to a boil, but I’m going to add my chicken bouillon, and I’m going to add bout two tablespoons of butter. Let this come to a boil, and then we’re going to add the couscous.
Now our butter melted and so did our bouillon. As you can see, it’s coming to a boil. We are going to now add our couscous. We’re going to let it cook for a minute and then we’re going to turn up the heat. So add the couscous, give it a little bit of a stir so that it’s well incorporated, just like that. Let it cook for a minute. See how it’s coming to a really quick boil. Just a minute, and then we’re going to turn off the heat. We’re going to cover the couscous, and then we’re going to put it on the side. And what’s going to happen is it’s going to cook from the heat that’s already in the liquid. We’re going to take it off and put it to the side.
Now we’re going to cook our vegetables. I have a nice sauté pan. It’s pretty deep so that it can hold all the vegetables. Now I’m going to add about two tablespoons of butter. Let that butter melt, then we’re going to add the onions to it. And we’re going to cook the onions for about 5 minutes before we add all of the other vegetables. Because the onions are going to need a little bit more time to cook, because they are thicker. So add the onions, give them a little stir, and then cook them for five minutes. So it’s been five minutes and our onions have picked up a lot of color and they are caramelizing. I’m going to add the carrots and the chick peas, and I’m going to let it cook for another five minutes. Give it a stir, and then let it go for another five minutes.
Now we let this cook for another five minutes. I’m going to add our garlic, our cilantro and our parsley, and our potatoes. Add that in, parsley, give it a stir. The smells that are coming out from this are absolutely amazing. You can smell the cilantro, the parsley, the garlic, the onion, smells great. You add the potatoes. Give them a sauté, just a quick sauté. I’m going to add a teaspoon of salt, and just toss it. And we’re going to move from the stove and I’m going to bring over the tomato sauce. So just like that. Make sure that everything is incorporated together. So I’m going to move this over, we’re going to work with the tomato sauce. Now this is about two 16-ounc cans of the tomato sauce. To this about, I’m going to add about two cups of water. We want enough liquid because we’re going to mix some of the sauce with the Couscous. I’m going to do a cup and a half. And then we’re going to also put the vegetables in here so that our sauce has a lot of flavor. So just give it a stir and then to this, we’re going to add our seasoning which is the paprika, cayenne pepper, nutmeg and seven spices. Just like that, stir it in, and let this come to a nice simmer.
Now our couscous, while we’re cooking this, our couscous is cooking. It’s steaming by itself in the pot, and we’re going to fluff it up with a fork as soon as we are done putting the sauce together.
So our sauce is coming to a simmer. We’re going to add, carefully add the vegetables to it. Now I’m going to use the spoon to make this a lot easier. We’re going to let this sauce simmer for about 10 to 12 minutes and then we’re going to put the dish together.
Ok so put together our parts of our Couscous dish. Now I didn’t add salt to the couscous because the bouillon that I have has a lot of flavor and a lot of salt to it. If you’re not going to sue any bouillon flavoring, you should add about a half teaspoon of salt when you cook the couscous. Aldo, I used red potatoes for the sauce dish, and I left the skin on because I like that. If you don’t like the skin on, and if you don’t like red potatoes, you can use any kind of potatoes that you’d like.
So we have the couscous, and it is now cooked up, and just with a fork, just like that. I’m going to fluff it up, very gently. You’ll see it almost doubled in size. It’s very similar to burgaul, in the sense that it’s a wheat. It’s a form of wheat. When it cooks, it does double in size. And this is eat in a lot in place of rice. So just like that. Fluff it up, and now I also wanted to tell you that there’s a lot of new different ways to serve couscous. Some people like to serve couscous in the dish and then in the center put the sauce, and then whatever meat or vegetables that you have. Traditionally, they mix the couscous with the sauce and then they put the meat and the vegetables in the center. Another way that you do it is that they serve the couscous in the plate, and the y serve the sauce on the side and just put the vegetables and the meat in the middle. Either way, you’re going to have everything together. But I’m going to serve it like my friend Aida taught me.
I want to get some of the couscous in a plate, and I’m going to add some sauce to it so that I can mix it up. Couscous is very bland in flavor, that’s why you want to make sure that your sauce has a lot of flavor. I’m going to take the sauce form our vegetable mix and add it to our couscous, and then give it a little bit of a mix. The just mix it up, just like that. And if you want to present this, you want to present it in a nice plate. So what I did, we got ourselves a nice red plate. You can use a white plate. You can use whatever color of plates that you like. I’m going to put the couscous in the plate. And you want to form a little well in the center and that’s where you’re going to put your vegetables, your meat, whatever you like. So just like that. And then move in our vegetables. They’re so beautiful, just like that. It’s with the potatoes, carrots. It’s a very healthy dish. It can definitely be a vegetarian dish as well. Let’s move these there, just like that.
This is Couscous; traditional, homemade, wonderful couscous. Try it. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great, great zest of flavor form the North African area of the Mediterranean. Let me know if you have any questions, and I know you are going to enjoy it. Join me again for Dede’s Mediterranean Kitchen.